


If I don't get some shelter, I'm gonna fade away

by mussings_over_tea



Series: Somewhere between unsure and a hundred [1]
Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Relationship Study, about this in every 2nd line of this fic lol, all about tennis and 'working out' too coincidence? i don't think so, also nick goes live drunk as fuck that one time me: let's make a fuss, also these two live literally on separate edges of the world so, and playing cod and being cliche dude until the hype around live, and they were ROOMMATES, and they were socially isolating in the apocalypse is the new, and yet they still deliver or maybe my goggles are so thick, god this is a new tempate for fics if you want to keep them canon compliant i guess, i'm not getting any matches any time soon at all and with them, it's overly pseudopoetic, switched something in him (BECAUSE IT'S RAFA) and made him, this is also canon compliant to nick's instagram activity and me pulling out my thick googles, to connect the dots and he was slipping and liking chicks posts, yeah i'm milking this streak dry before he goes back to being THE DUDE, yep same old same old thing here it's self indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24097984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mussings_over_tea/pseuds/mussings_over_tea
Summary: That live between Nick and Rafa everyone wanted and it didn't happen? Yep, I sort of gave it to them. Or a character study of Nicholas H Kyrgios (and his feelings for Señor Nadal) during the apocalypse. Same old, same old.
Relationships: Nick Kyrgios/Rafael Nadal, Rafael Nadal/Nick Kyrgios
Series: Somewhere between unsure and a hundred [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772491
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	If I don't get some shelter, I'm gonna fade away

He lets Stefanos leak his phone on a whim. Maybe he’s a little bit tipsy, too, as it happens often lately. He’s so fucking grateful he’s in Canberra. Not away, abroad, in some hotel room in Miami or anywhere else that’s not home. Where he would be alone. Really. Because not in that place of safety, carefree and allowance Canberrra always is for him.

_I can’t be alone._

He once said. Stupid questionnaires of a young Aussie star, of Australia’s brightest hope. Ages ago. He let it slip. He answered, raw and vulnerable. The interviewer didn’t probably notice in a babble of other irrelevant answers. As he revealed the barest truth about himself. It’s not like they cared enough to know, anyway. Not much was needed to cast him away as a leper and disgrace soon afterwards.

He can’t be alone and in the darkness of his room, sometimes, at night, even with his mates in headphones making them cruise through a war zone like true, loyal troopers, the realization of distance between them that stretches for God knows how long, till next year maybe, chokes him. And so he reaches for something to ease his breathing. It’s often the booze. And it does the work. It makes him exhale and inhale for a while, remember how to, as if life is not derailed off tracks.

The response is overwhelming. Maybe he secretly waited on it, wondered, how much people care? A call for attention. To fill up this gaping hole. Of loneliness. Of detachment. But these are all strangers. The distance doesn’t change. The distance remains a suffocating sensation. Yes, some of them wishing him good things, others mocking, spitting their usual enlightened teachings ( _If you could do this, if you could do that, you would be a different player. No shit Sherlock?_ ). None of them knowing him, being here when it matters, being here now. He lets the wine wash away the hoarse feeling inside his throat, as he browses through endless stream of messages, blurring into white noise of dry, faceless, emotionless letters. Then he sets the phone on mute and goes back to medicating himself.

Sniggering thought at the back of his head resurfaces before the dull post-wine buzz drowns it.

It’s not like _he_ was going to call anyway.

*

The feel of the racket in his hand comes with a turmoil of emotions. But it’s never something he does casually, a muscle memory, a habit on autopilot, boring routine. No. He doesn’t let it show, but there’s always a charge. A scar tissue. Remembering all the highs this instrument brought him all the hurts it cost him. That gaping hole inside him fills with meaning, maybe more than when he gets to hang out with his pals after such a long time of being in the cave, thinking he will never see the sun again (interact, _be_ , with others, not alone, _I can’t be alone_ ).

It’s been maybe a month. But it feels like it’s been a different era. Yes, he had some fun with the kids in California, trained really hard there, too, maybe out of spite, maybe to show them after Acapulco that it stings to lose this one (The King is Dead, Long Live the King, of course, _He_ returned, to that rightful throne, the prospect of that clash between them, with their rich history, after Melbourne and the prologue there, this prospect that never happened, because his body fell apart on him, fueled Nick in California to fight for these lost chances even more. To fight for _Him_. Or, for Them, really. Pft). But the last time he held a racket, when it really mattered, before that true battle, skin sizzling with electricity, heart filled with purpose, lungs inhaling pain and exhaling determination, was with him, in Melbourne, after Kobe’s death (his eyes never seeing more clearly, his soul never more whole with the message it leaves him). 

Of course it was with him.

“You’re back? He’s back? The King’s back and the Aussie crowd boos and cheers and everyone goes wild as Kygs returns on courts for junk press to finally get some food,” Daniel cheers, not as good at impersonating the haughty reporter’s voice as Loney is, but coming across with the message good enough.

Nick chuckles and shakes his head in affection. “Let’s find out, shall we? Ready to get your ass whooped?”

“By Your Majesty, always.”

The balls are too soft, they travel so slow, because the surface of this place is in absolute ruins. He remembers that night, the conditions were completely against him, but he still gave his all and bled out and soared in purpose. Meeting him halfway, spaces inside full of flare and dare and thrill complemented by his precision, fierceness and almost vicious dedication.

He felt whole.

_I can’t be alone._

He never is when he plays him.

And so he wasn’t then and there. Grief inside him became inspiration and when he was stepping off the court, not a loser, he won so much more in Melbourne, than a match, the ovation ringing with support, ringing with presence of these people maybe finally seeing him, understanding him brought tears to his eyes. And maybe in the lockers, before he left, before Rafa came to see him like this, he cried, filled with purpose. Overwhelmed with the sense of complete. Belonging.

This is what tennis should be about. This is what tennis has often been to him.

When _he_ was on the opposite side of the net.

“Fuck this, man. It’s a nightmare,” he drops the racket to the concrete, cracked, ugly ground of this place.

It feels nothing like it did then. It only reminds him of the distance separating him from the finish line. What’s the finish line?

To play him. Always.

So they go back to his cave, where he can pretend he doesn’t miss tennis, (doesn’t miss tennis specifically with him) and him leading his troopers in a war zone is enough of a taste of the feeling of completion he used to carry on court.

He still drops _his_ name, in that mocking story narrative on insta, because _his_ name always goes with tennis. Because _his_ name baptizes his tennis and makes it valid.

Because _his_ name _is_ tennis for him.

*

That ridiculous mash up of their faces on a possible insta live feed knocks the breath out of him, before he dives to sarcasm, to mockery, steps on a safe, stable ground. Hides in the familiar. Brushing it off. As hilarious. As a joke. As a provocation. And before he puts it on his stories, as a jab hiding invitation, really. As a call for attention. Or longing for that wholeness (but it’s not the same, no. Because they wouldn’t be on court. They wouldn’t be whole in tennis).

And then he drinks himself to oblivion, because the sarcasm is not enough to hide hope and eagerness for it to happen. The sarcasm is not enough to placate fear if it would. To reveal them as strangers, that has nothing in common. Torn by differences and distance.

And yet coming so completely together on court.

He mumbles, small and needy: _I love you, man. I love you_ to one of his mates on the phone. Is it a phone conversation, are they going live? He doesn’t fucking care. He’s aware of the words leaving his mouth, slurred, still raw and true.

_I can’t be alone._

He sees the response the other day.

Generation gap. Pft.

Graceful and classy. General words _he_ could use on anyone else. Not with _their_ history. Not with years of challenges and accusations and constant pulsating electricity between _them_.

Nick grips his phone. No anger. No contempt. Just indifference is what he gets in return from Rafa.

The hangover weighs on him. As if he’s not used to drinking so much. As if he doesn’t balance on the edge of drowning himself in the booze often enough.

He stays in his cave for the entire day, under the pretences of recovering from few drinks too many (noting out of the ordinary after all). He hides with the truth. With ego bleeding with fucking raw and pathetic longing.

_Give me anger. Give me mockery. Give me something. **We** deserve it. _

Except maybe there never was any _we_. Except maybe _they_ are strangers in the end.

*

He always acts on a whim. Unstable engine of impulses inside him that go unchecked, without discipline, without limitations, in his kingdom of forever childhood, behind the glass copula of wonderland. It often brought him regrets, maybe even scars (he calls abuse, he calls depression, they mock him for, they, who never gave him space, a room for an error or a failure, they, expecting a 17year old to deliver them, to ascend onto the dry land of conquerors as a savior, or maybe he lost as one since the very beginning because he had never fit that particular dream of theirs with everything he is at all?). If often brought joys, too, people that are in his life now, with nothing but love and acceptance for who he is, not a savior, not a deliverer, not the chosen one. A best friend, a good son, a helpful neighbor or an eager kid.

He’s willing to risk it again. His skin is thick, the tattoos are equivalents of scars but worn like badges of honour. There is no threat of him getting hurt any more (he’s mastered this ability. It’s a dare to him, it’s called lying to himself, in reality.) He’s stuck, in thick mud of stagnation, over the edge of blissful oblivion where no pressure will ever get to him. In a kingdom of childhood where nobody ever dies. Where nobody ever fails. Where you always feel like a hero. But this place doesn’t exist. It’s a land of frail what ifs that taste like paper.

So he makes a move to either climb from that chasm or disappear in it completely. It feels like this is the moment. This is the choice. Final judgment of his tennis. Who he will seek out to make it if not _him_. _His_ name synonymous with tennis for Nick.

It’s a middle of the night, he’s in his bed, the chasm around him, tempting but threatening so he slips into Rafa’s account on Instagram and types a message.

_generation gap? seriously thats ur excuse???_

He wants to turn off the phone. Put on the headphones, disappear in the armour of music, shield himself there. Or jump into the virtual world of guns blazing and troopers having his back, to think about a strategy, and strategy only, where he’s the leader, the hero, the good guy like he’d always dream of, silently, into his pillow.

But he waits. Even if it consumes him. He was never good with waiting. Waiting is a roaring dragon in him just as much as silence is.

The chasm growls impatient. It reminds him of a match point. That buzzing silence that has a roaring sound in his head and a shape of hands around his throat choking. And him still sometimes being able to raise above into a complete serenity and sharp focus.

Often during match points against _him_. Rafa’s presence on the opposite side of the net becomes his wings then.

Just as his response becomes a hand pulling him from slipping into a chasm now.

_You say you wouldn’t have a beer with me and hang out in London bars._

It makes him laugh out loud. He does. He laughs and it’s genuine and it fills him up to the brink and makes him feel full, like missing pieces click and come together inside.

The fact that Rafa remembers. The fact how insignificant and stupid the reason is in hindsight. In the world they live in now. God.

_it was literally in a different decade i was young and stupid_

He doesn’t write he would have a beer with Rafa now. The list of would haves is endless probably for everyone on the planet now. He would do so many things. Appreciate so many things. Or maybe it’s just a temporary thinking. A hangover from the apocalypse. He doesn’t write it because in the end he doesn’t have to.

Rafa does.

_It mean you would have a beer with me in London now Nick?_

_you aint look like a beer kind of a guy pizza and wine sounds better_

Jesus. There must be a residue of booze in his system. Especially that he thinks of candlelight, of Rafa’s charming, shy smile, he never had directed at him. The would haves are lethal. So vivid. As if they cumuluated inside him, abandoned, as he pretended he doesn’t acknowledge them and, unattended, they grew into this crystal clear vision now.

_I’m Spanish, you know. More pasta and risotto guy. Sea food the most._

It opens another pair of doors, through which a series of images breaks through. Nick loves sea food. Nick picked up some recipes from Nill. Nick could cook something. Nick could cook something for _him_. He thinks that he could even do without wine for the occasion. The buzzing feeling of cooking for someone would have been enough.

And again. Would have.

_all right okay youre a fussy d …._

He backspaces the letters forming almost viscerally exposing confession.

_Date._

The images grow in technicolour. Rafa’s smile is so bright and Nick feels light-headed.

So he fixes it into 

_…dude i can totally do sea food in fact thats my fav food too_

Looks almost innocent. Neutral. Nick thinks. He wishes they were talking. Rafa loose and teasing, like he is with Muzza, like he is with Roger. Like he is with everyone else in his life. Would he be like this with him, too? The chuckle he releases is bitter and tastes acidic.

_Do you mean you cooking it?_

Rafa still notices. Still reads between the lines. Is curious or amused? Or ridiculing?

_afraid imma poison you or sth?_

_Would you?_

_Of course im your most bitter rival yeaH?_

His fingers shake. There’s fury in him buzzing. Whenever he reads about him and Nadal. Whenever he reads about himself. He wanted it, did he? As a protection. Relishing in these sinister labels. Still cherishing all the would haves deep inside. Still dreaming of being a hero and a leader sometimes.

_media dont know shit_

He adds. Bitter. Chocked out. A petulant child not really understanding his own feelings. Or maybe just still running away from them.

_It don’t. True. That why I would be curious of you cooking, Nick._

The doors are wide opened now and the possibilities become endless. Except for that sweeping post scriptum. That the world is ending around them. And if the distance between them was not already something default, now it’s inevitable and obligatory.

_Shame since we’re stuck at homes now_

_You can ship it. That how you say it?_

Nick snorts, thinking of Rafa’s raised, teasing eyebrow. Wondering how close to the expression he remembers from his interactions with others his face would be now? Talking to him. Fond and playful.

They can’t even call each other. They are not allowed into each other’s lives like that. Even here, he chats to him like a stranger would. A fan seeking attention.

And yet they share a court like wholeness, don’t they?

He swallows bitterness, because it’s not how you should eat sea food. It’s not how it should be between them.

_Uhm it’s a dinner Rafa you shoudn’t ship dinner_

He writes with another suggestion in between the lines.

_It’s a dinner?_

That Rafa might or might not have just read by asking this specific question. Verifying or responding to hints.

_might be?_

Innocent or spelling out.

_I see._

Nick waits. Thinks of changing the topic. But this one still feels unfinished. The meaning fleeting but there.

_Then you’re right, Nick. You shouldn’t ship dinner._

The images flow. And Nick was never a romantic. But suddenly dinner is the experience between two people. And it’s intimate. And it’s eyes shining with suggestion. And it’s smiles beaming with invitation. And it’s hands or legs brushing, promises for later in the evening. Promises of the night. Full of skin, heat, sighs and that belonging they have on court.

He grips the phone case, only lines of letters for him there. Each one could be the sound, the touch, the confession. But it isn’t and it won’t be in the end. He will never have this. But this is as close as he can.

_its not that terrible we are not that terrible at it yeah?_

He says or he asks. He confesses or seeks confirmation.

_Terrible how?_

_This … this is like that live you didn’t want raf_

He dares to call him that. It’s in writing. It doesn’t have the power of the name spoken out loud. The name made Nick’s. The name made _theirs_. Good. It won’t disturb Rafa. But it won’t have any meaning either like this.

It looks like accusation a bit, too. _You didn’t want it. You didn’t want me_. A petulant child confessing what he’s been running from his whole life. ( _I can’t be alone.)_

_It wouldn’t work with so many people listening._

Rafa ignores that bit with accusation. But Rafa confesses the truth of his own.

Nick thinks he’s absolutely right. Nick wouldn’t want to share it with anyone. He never wants to share this charged but sacred wholeness they have on court. Tasting of electricity, but tasting of serenity too. And no one sees it like that, anyway. They call it bitter rivalry. Good. Because it’s theirs and it’s intimate and it’s cherished and their own. Let media have their shallow stories instead.

_I found another one you know … that us going live thingies …here it is_

He did find [another post](https://66.media.tumblr.com/718e8f2dedc772d69bb7d7a5f0853b26/b64478d3602685c7-05/s400x600/a59f81a23b515b48b71e1ee0da6d669c32223a6e.png). Merging their faces together. He might have been even looking. He doesn’t care it exposes him with the fact. This is all he has. Strings of letters Rafa responds with he can match with the image of what his face could be like. What his face could be showing.

_Ha. We look like we’re very happy to see each other._

_Haha I know as opposed to how normally there would be a western stare down and a boxing match to the death hype._

He loves this ridiculous footage they always use before their matches. This cinematographic concept of them selling tickets, drawing all the attention, becoming the very core of what tennis should be about. Emotion, intensity, spark and just a tad of that personal involvement. A spectacle and a domestic. Media love to call it a beef. To Nick it’s wholeness. He loves it because it’s out there for everyone to see, even if people on the outisde find a different name for it.

The poignancy is there. The poignancy of _them._

As if reading his mind, Rafa responds.

_What would poor media do with us like this? No how youth say it ? No spice there_

Hmm. Nick feels warmth inside his chest. A spike of temperature at the word used. Spice sounds better than a beef, for sure. Spice implies that heat and electricity fueling them both always when they clash, or when they come together, or both.

_We look like we might be talking about that sea food dinner Id say that would give them spice_

_Not shipped but shared, si?_

Wow. Nick’s throat goes dry. He’s swallowing on this proposition, he’s savouring the prospect, he tries to get to the core taste of it. What it implies, what it could mean. What ifs. Could haves. No flavor just bland aftertaste of what never happened and never will.

The words he replies with look so bare, so raw on screen. ( _Tell me when and where?_ )

Desperate and exposing. More than his anger aimed at Rafa on court is. More than his lashing out is. So he deletes them and writes playful and noncommittal.

_haha that would be true mexican spice_

_Speaking of. Sorry about Acapulco._

For a moment Nick forgot. He doesn’t think of their meetings in places. He remembers in emotions, expressions and sensations. This year’s Acapulco might have hurt more not because he lost the crown, but because he didn’t have a chance to fight for it with _him_. And this is what he says.

_me2 u deserved a better final ;-P_

_Hmm. With you. That would be a spectacle. The draw really wanted to give media spice this year, huh?_

Except this year hasn’t happened. This year stopped in the middle, or at the beginning or Nick wonders when as all sense of time got lost along the way and the list of could haves grew endless, tasting of paper, tasting of nothing.

He sends the questions he’s been asking himself all that time, struggling with stagnation, struggling with denial, looking for signs, for a nudge to make a choice. To wake up.

_do you miss it?_

_I try not think about it._

Evasive answer. Because Nick is poking on the wound, even he himself feels. That phantom loss of a part of your body almost.

So he rephrases the question, to pin Rafa even more to the court like he does with niftiness of his shots.

_thats what you tell media because it’s the right thing to say it’s bullshit raf how much do you miss it?_

Rafa doesn’t reply. Of course, mister pristine, classy and courteous, raging on court, throwing you fiery looks of a competitor once you take the ball from him, once you stomp onto his kingdom to dare and leave your mark there, to dare and topple the domination. He won’t reveal himself even here, where the only light in Nick’s room comes from the screen of his phone as they’ve seemed to be cocooned in the world of their own. A bubble of familiarity but reserve.

Maybe because the words written in that blinding light would have been as bare and naked as Nick’s confessions almost materialized before.

Nick waits. Nick hopes. Nick thinks this is the nudge he’s been waiting for. To break that stagnation.

As it almost always boils down to this.

Rafa’s tennis. Or their tennis.

And Rafa’s response from the other side of the net.

It comes. After a while. Measured, precise and knocking you off your feet. Just like his return would. Or any other shot.

_Like I don’t have no strength to get up from bed sometimes._

It makes Nick's breath hitch. He didn’t expect anything else from Rafa. Rafa is tennis. He exhales and inhales the game. But to let Nick in so much into the raw truth of it. The admittance almost burning bright in the dark of the room, Nick’s room, to stay there, for him to have it, to cherish it, like almost having a piece of Rafa’s heart. This is a lot. But this is also the fuel, the spark he needs, carving out the stagnation. Making it slowly crumble under the growing resolve.

Of course the spark comes from _him_. Of course Nick’s tennis comes back to life because of Rafa.

He reacts with the same kind of disclosing honesty.

_God raf like I felt so guilty I felt like an ungrateful bastard cos I couldn’t think of tennis at first with all that misery around then I got it that im also using this whole shit as pretext to escape cuz tennis was a pressure and a fckn burden again and then after anger I felt numb but I always remember I always know the last time I held a tennis racket in a competitive match that mattered and Im angry again and then I dont wanna escape and I miss the tour when I remember this match_

It’s a fucking essay of emotions. He doesn’t share as much on therapy. He doesn’t share as much with anyone maybe. Not even himself up to this point. But talking to Rafa, opens his eyes, makes him realise.

 _He_ will always be the spark. And it’s difficult to endure this feeling of missing something that was ripped away from you and you don’t know if you ever get it back in a shape and form that you know it (you love it?). But he doesn’t want to escape anymore, he thinks. He wants to remember the feeling and he wants to believe it will come back and fuel him again.

Playing in Melbourne. Playing with Rafa. Feeling purpose. Feeling belonging. Being whole.

He wants Rafa to realise the connection. Or maybe he already does. Because the connection really goes both ways.

_And by the way my last competitive match was with you …._

Looks in writing and sounds in his head like loud and clear, _my tennis only has meaning when I play it with you._

Rafa maybe does know this. Does recognize it. Reads it between the lines. And does feel it, in the end, too when he sends his

_Good. Remember it. Learn from it. So when the draw favor us again you can take back the crown maybe?_

God. He hopes. He hopes so much. That cycle of theirs. Perpetuum mobile. One way or another Rafa will always be waiting on the other side of the net for him.

_(I can’t be alone.)_

_(You won’t. I’ll always be there.)_

He’s tired of would haves. He wants the would haves to stop. He wants to follow the spark in him and make the would haves happen.

He wants to go back to tennis and now he knows it and he feels it and it fills him up with the resolve burning out the numbness inside.

_When I get the crown back I can soften the blow with that d….._

He doesn’t write _dinner._ With all the implications of intimacy shared. This is a would have that will remain one. In this lifetime it will.

_… sea food, yeah?_

_We need to give media the spice, si. P.S. I think I even miss the pressers._

Nick laughs out loud. Another common thing between them. Another familiar topic. How many of those they could find if they came together off court, too? Who would they have become then?

_HAHAHA. Same._

What would have happened with them in that another lifetime?

They have this one. And this is enough. It’s more than enough. The spark in Nick burns bright now. He feels it’s a fuel that will last for some time. Maybe even till the waiting is over, keeping him away from numbness and stagnation now.

_Oh. And, Happy Birthday, Nick._

Rafa writes after a beat. The spike of warmth that follows Nick thinks could have been seen on his face. He still manages to tease back.

_You could of wrote on my actual birthday, haha._

_Maybe I did_ _:-)_

The spike is now a full-on heat licking his inside with feelings of thrill and impatience. But Rafa’s already gone. (Now, he’s the master of tease. Playful familiarity comes from him this time).

Leaves the trail of their inevitability behind.

To follow.

To find strength with.

And Nick’s old number’s been changed so he has no way of looking for Rafa’s wishes but the flutter of hope is now engraved on his heart, the beat of which chases the numbness away.

And the wishes shine on the light of the screen in the darkness of Nick’s room now like a symbolism anyway. To be cherished. To remind him what matters. 

*

So, the next day he goes on court. The surface is still uneven, the ball travels slow, bounces terribly. But none of it matters. The racket feels perfect in his hands, his body feels wired and ready to go, as if he didn’t try to bury it in a slumber.

He belongs here.

Not in a place. But doing what he does. With tennis.

There is no stagnation. There is purpose. He remembers and it beats in him loudly. It continues for a while. Maybe till the waiting is over.

_(I can’t be alone.)_

_(You’re not.)_


End file.
